Cut Me Down
by arysani
Summary: AU, New Moon and forward. Werewolves, people who can't make decisions, and things that aren't well-planned make Alice's vision fuzzy. What if Edward didn't come back? What happens to Bella in the wake of the greatest love of her life?
1. Chapter 1

It's strange how the most normal things can trip a landmine.

The dreamcatcher that hangs in Billy Black's kitchen window has a small prism in it. I sat at the kitchen table reading, when the sun broke through the clouds, shining a shaft of yellow-white down into La Push, and catching on the faceted prism.

The light danced, the prism suddenly inspired by sunlight to spin delicately within its web of strings and beads. The colours trickled across my pages, across my fingers, and I turned to look towards the window.

The prism _glittered_ and I got a sudden feeling like someone had punched me in the gut.

_Edward_.

His voice hadn't echoed in my head for weeks, and I actually hadn't given any thought to it, which immediately twisted the stomach-punch with guilt. I knew I wasn't sleeping, I knew I must still be having nightmares, because I felt tired every morning when I woke up. But perhaps it was a gift from the subtler workings of my brain that I stopped remembering my dreams.

I left Billy's house and got into my truck and drove out to the cliffs at First Beach. The cliffs where Jacob had promised to take me cliff-diving. The cliffs where I had stared in awe when I saw the pack diving off them so long ago – when they were still 'Sam's gang' and not yet 'the pack'; the cliffs where I was sure I would hear Edward's voice.

Opening the truck door, a gust of wind blew my hair across my face; chilling the back of my neck and making me shiver. I looked up and saw that that single shaft of sunlight was long gone – now the clouds that gathered were dark and dangerous, thick and heavy instead of light and fluffy.

I wrapped my arms around myself, the door still open, and stood looking out towards the cliffs. If I meant to jump, if I really meant to, he would say something, wouldn't he? I swallowed, and made to step out, but my feet were rooted to the spot.

Instead of Edward's voice, I heard a voice I hadn't heard in even longer – my own. It said: _Bella, look at those clouds. Look out at the water, the way it's crested with white. You won't just get a cheap thrill and hear his voice. You'll _kill _yourself._

And even though that voice was foreign to me, lost for longer than I cared to recollect, it made sense in a way I wasn't sure I really knew. It was a visceral sort of sense, like my body was ready to obey, even though my mind definitely wasn't.

I got back in the truck and slammed the door.

I sat staring out at the cliffs, and the well I thought must've been dry by now overflowed again. The tears stung, they were painful, and because there was no one to hear me, the sobs that came out of my throat felt like they were being ripped up from my chest with ragged fingernails. My mouth burned with them, my nose couldn't keep up with my need for air, and the inside of my sinuses felt raw. But I kept crying. I kept it up for time indeterminate. I kept it up even as the clouds began to rumble and bang, even as the rain started to pelt down, huge fat droplets smacking down on my truck.

I gripped the steering wheel, my face down, my knuckles white, and when I looked up to find a Kleenex because the snot was starting to get annoying, the sobs were cut off abruptly.

She stood there, in the rain, twenty feet in front of my truck, her hair plastered down, soaking wet.

_Victoria_.

I had barely time to think, and she was at my window; her arm punching through the glass, grabbing my hair, and yanking me towards her.

"Oh how lovely. I suppose wishes are granted after all. I wondered if this would ever be easy, and here you are, without your escort, just waiting for me," she whispered harshly in my ear, tightening her grip in my brown locks, twisting and pulling and bringing tears of an entirely different sort to my eyes.

And a small part of me thought: _Okay. Okay._

And that small part took a deep breath, and was calm.

I inhaled, a rattling sound from my sobs, and managed to utter her name.

She yanked me out the window – I hadn't refastened my seat belt. I felt the sharp stings as the broken glass scraped and punctured my skin through my thin clothing.

She pulled me into her, and my body was limp. She hissed, and twisted me again, and I couldn't find the strength to fight her. I struggled fruitlessly, the part of me that wanted to survive this wrestling for control with the part that said, treacherously, _Okay_.

Into my ear, she chuckled softly, and then turned my head, where there was a cut on my cheek. She grinned, her eyes black, and very slowly stuck out her tongue and licked me from chin to temple.

"Oh," she shivered a little, and I couldn't help but whimper at my hopelessness. "Oh, that _is _good." She held fast to my hair, and made me look at her. "Not the best I've ever tasted, alas, but I think the fact that you're _Edward's _bitch makes it a little bit sweeter." She licked her lips, rolling her tongue around in her mouth. "Mmm. Yeah. It does."

She took her hand off my face, and pushed me to fall to my knees. She reached down to my arm, where the protection of my puffy vest had ended at the shoulder and left my bicep vulnerable to the broken glass. There was a piece of glass stuck just an inch and a half below my shoulder. I was already faint from fright and the smell of blood, and seeing that glass jutting out from my skin made my stomach roil just a little more.

She grinned at me, showing me her teeth, and reached for my arm, wrapping her pale fingers gently around the glass and my arm. Then she squeezed, shoving it farther into my muscle.

It hurt _so much_ and all I could come up with was a weak whine. I had no more tears to cry, and the ducts stung a little, even with the fat cold raindrops falling on my tightly closed lids.

I opened my eyes in time to see her put her hand to her mouth and use that same slow motion to lick my blood off her hand as she had to lick it off my face.

The glass _burned _and it _hurt so much_ that I started to breathe heavily.

Bile rose in the back of my throat, and as I heard her hum in contentment, her grip tightening in my hair with pleasure, I realized this was it. I was going to die.

And self preservation edged out complacency.

I ripped my head to the side and let out a scream I didn't know I was capable of with my throat so raw.

Her right hand dropped my hair and her left, fingers curled slightly in a very loose fist, swept down and cracked me, backhanded, across the face. I felt bones break. I felt cartilage stab the fleshy tissue of my sinuses.

Falling to the sand, I felt instantly that that was the worst thing I could have done. But at the same time, it was the only thing.

_Get up. Get up. Get up._

The self-preservation voice, the Bella voice, she told me to get up, to run, to get away.

I struggled to my hand and knees, one hand held over my nose and mouth.

She stomped her foot down in the middle of my back, my limbs shooting out to the sides as my chest pressed into the sand, bits of shell poking my skin.

"Not so fast, little bitch. I'm far from done yet," she seethed.

And then there was a gust of wind across my face, and her foot was gone from my back with a snarl.

I managed to turn my face the other way, and saw a great black wolf wrestling with her. My breath came out in a huff from my mouth, and I wanted to cry Sam's name – Sam Uley, who was rescuing me for a second time.

He was then joined by a brown and a grey and a russet, racing across the sand with guttural sounds of anger.

Paul. Jared. _Jacob_.

I watched with a sort of horror, as four against one was no fair fight – even for a vampire.

I looked away, and my mind was white-noise.

I heard, as though they were so much farther away, Sam's voice saying "burn it", and then I heard him say Jacob's name. I looked up, dazed, and Jacob had me in his arms.

"Bella," he breathed. "Are you okay?"

"No," I said.

Because it was the truth.


	2. Chapter 2

I tried desperately not to be a zombie again. I didn't want to hurt my father.

The broken nose, the splintered facial bones, the glass – Jacob and Paul covered for me, but at an expense that only made me more depressed.

They banged up my truck.

There wasn't enough glass for me to try and sacrifice the motorcycle – even though I wanted to sacrifice that just as little as I wanted to give up the red, bulbous 'senior citizen' of a motor vehicle.

Even though it was infinitely more painful to sob with splints in my nose and the bruises on my face, my sinuses raw, I still did. I cried for hours over my _truck_.

It was the last thing that was mine, the last thing that was all-me, the last thing I had that made Bella-Swan-before-Edward.

Charlie didn't know what to do with me. Then again, I didn't know what to do with me.

Jacob tried to console me, he tried to be there for me, but I didn't want any of it anymore. I felt dirty, and sick, knowing that I had used Jacob, had tried to bury myself in his affection to escape missing Edward. I felt as though no person was ever as selfish as I was. So instead of taking his comfort, I pushed him away. I pushed everyone away, and Charlie didn't seem to even have it in him to yell at me again – to tell me that pining over Edward was worthless.

All those discussions we had about being a real person again – he didn't seem to have it in him to repeat himself. So he just watched, a sad wary look in his eyes, as I finished out my last year at Forks High; and he tried to smile, hoping, I'm sure, that college held greater promise than his little town.

I chose Seattle – close enough to home that I didn't feel like I was abandoning Charlie, yet far enough away to attempt a new beginning.

_And close enough, should Edward ever return_.

I tried not to think about him.

Impossible, in actuality.

But it's the thought that counts, right?

# # # # #

It surprised no one that my college career path narrowed right down to gothic literature.

Within the gothic, I was safe from sappy romance – I was safe from happy endings. Here, the poetry of Byron and Shelly made it clear that not everyone gets to live happily ever after. I had darkness (the monster created in a lightning storm), I had macabre (the baby in the peach brandy), and I had real commentaries on social interaction and the society of the Victorian age. I took a few socio-anthropology classes, and delved into the historic threads of my Victorian gothic literature.

I became someone else.

The Izzy Swan that walked the halls these days was a known entity – and she had few friends, but no enemies either. Everyone was either too superficially frightened or simply didn't care.

My skin, always pale, was emphasized by the black tee shirts and dusters I wore over worn jeans. The circles under my eyes reminded me of him – I found I didn't really sleep anymore.

The company I kept was the quiet sort – a boy named Joseph who wore a spiked dog collar and quoted Nietzsche, and an overweight girl named Leigh who painted her lips and her eyes black and dyed her blonde hair black too. She said black was the only color that didn't make her look fat – so she cut everything else out of her wardrobe. We were sometimes joined by a skinny auburn-haired girl with spectacles who had a number of unsettling facial ticks, and wore black skirts and Marilyn Manson shirts. She was named after the girl in _The Exorcist_.

Joseph and I often got into heated arguments about 'the greater good'.

And sometimes those heated arguments led to unsatisfying sex in his room, my room, his car, my car, the library and several dormitory common rooms.

I kept allowing it, because I suppose some part of me wanted it. But I never felt whole or sated or light and fluffy like all those crappy romance novels my mother read said I should.

I started to smoke – menthol ultra-lights at first, and then gradually less light; never giving up the minty aftertaste. I liked how it burned when I exhaled through my nostrils, my sinuses never really healed from their constant assault of a year of crying and a few broken bones. I was even blessed with fairly regular nosebleeds. It was painful, but it made me feel _real_. So I smoked two packs a week.

A job opened up working in the writing center, editing other kids' essays, helping them improve their style, their grammar, even their spelling and syntax. I needed money for cigarettes, and I was top of my college writing class. So they let me have it – so long as I remembered that smoking was to take place _outside _the writing lab.

I was almost a senior before I realized what I'd become.

# # # # #

"Izzy, can you look at this again? I don't know," a freshman named Elise, a pretty blonde, quiet, was unfortunately one of my regulars.

She was smart, and she reminded me of Rosalie – at least in looks, as she was a much smaller girl. However, as great as she was at expressing herself verbally, and had a beautiful style when she was writing, she had trouble getting to the point and sticking to it.

Elise and I would work on single essay that she would have completely researched and drafted weeks before it was due, so that we could spend the time between turning it into something she could actually submit. Generally we started with me taking her draft and using a red pen (it made her cry the first time, but now it made her _fierce_) to remove over half the text. Then she would remove that, and try to reinsert the information, and I would only have to remove a quarter.

We eventually would work down to a concise seven to ten page document that answered the question, gave appropriate source material, and even had a clear hypothesis and conclusion.

Some part of me felt like a midwife when I helped her with her papers – together we birthed something beautiful.

"Yeah?"

She held out the page in question, where I had insisted once again that she treat her audience as her peer, and not go into depth discussing every step of the fall of Rome. Everyone knew Rome fell. It was the _why_ that we were interested in – we did not need recounts of the battles on each front that collapsed the Western Empire.

My eyes scanned the portion that I had bracketed, but not crossed out. She hadn't really taken anything out. "Okay, but we don't care about Britain. We care about home politics," I said, holding it out to her.

"But Britain was the first sign of sickness within the Empire – they couldn't hold their farthest claim, so they started to retreat, closer and closer to their capital."

"Yes, and we know that. So just say that. Say that the withdrawal from Britain was the first sign of sickness, blah blah blah, but don't talk about troop movements, don't mention what they were leaving behind, don't mention the," I pulled the paper back, "warning of more trouble on the horizon for a young nation as ships from the North came to 'go a wiking' on the shores that Rome left unprotected.'" I held the paper back out to her. "I don't care. Your question is about _Rome_ – and while yes, Britain is important, don't go into discussions of Britain _without_ Rome. Rome's gone. Keep moving with Rome, don't stay behind with Britain."

She furrowed her brow, taking the paper from me, and reached for her pile of multicolored pens to strike out and rewrite her paragraph. I turned to go back to the computer, where I had been wrangled into editing this week's copy of the college newspaper in the absence of its usual editor-in-chief.

"Izzy?"

"Hmm?" I turned back to face her.

"You're a really good teacher," she began, and bit her lip. I almost smiled, because I felt like that little thing made us kindred. "Why are you like this?" She gestured with a green gel pen at me, from head to toe.

I raised an eyebrow.

"Like what?"

"Like that, you know. You dress in black, you're going to give yourself lung cancer, I can tell you never sleep enough, and you're very unfriendly."

I didn't know how to react. No one had ever "summed me up" before.

_Unfriendly?_

"Unfriendly?" I repeated, and tried not to sound offended. I actually found I wasn't sure if I _should _even be offended, and a part of my brain wondered why I had to think about such a thing – whether I _should _be offended, like I'd forgotten how to be a person.

"Well, you're not a bitch right off, but you give off vibes that say very clearly 'leave me alone'. But I know you can be nice. You're very helpful to me, and I've watched you help other people in here. You always say 'please' and 'thank you' and you get into very passionate discussions with Maggie," she nodded her head towards the office of the writing center captain, Professor Margaret Keys, who preferred to be called 'Maggie'.

I just nodded, rather speechless. So I said the only thing that came to mind.

"I won't get lung cancer."

"Yes you will."

I shook my head. "The first time I hear a smoker's cough come out of my mouth, I'll quit."

"But your voice sounds like a smoker's."

"Because I breathed through my mouth for three months a couple of years ago – I still do it sometimes. A lot, maybe. Reflex, I guess. My throat is always a little raw because I can't stop myself."

Why was I telling her this? I didn't know Elise outside the writing center – I knew she always had plenty of history papers, so it was easy enough to guess at her potential major, but we did not frequent the same parties, did not use our chalked IDs to mingle in the same bars. She was a stranger to me.

"What'd you do that you had to breathe through your mouth for three months?"

I stuck my hands in the pockets of my duster, left open in the warmth of the spring air that wafted through the third floor windows.

"Broke my nose. And a few of the bones here," I took one hand out of a pocket to point across my cheek, under my eye, where Victoria had smacked me. "Car accident," I said, feeding her the same lie I'd fed everyone else – the lie that at least half of La Push kept from everyone in Forks. No thanks to werewolf minds and open parental relationships on the reservation, I thought to myself bitterly.

And I found myself thinking of werewolves, of wolf girls, of bonfires and laughter.

"Hey, see? You can smile."

I snapped out of it and looked at Elise; whatever she had seen on my face was gone. I had no desire to continue the conversation, so I said: "Just finish up that bit, and leave your notes. I'll do a few more edits and you can pick it up tomorrow."

She pressed her lips together, but didn't push it. I sat down at the computer and brought up the Page Editor and clicked and dragged and typed my way through arranging short columns around the ever-growing number of advertisement blocks, and re-wording titles so they didn't take up half the column space in their big serifed fonts.

I heard her shuffle papers some time later, and I heard her say quietly "good night Izzy", but I didn't reply, or look at her. I was rude, because she had hit a tender spot.

And I didn't realize I had any of those left.


	3. Chapter 3

After I showered that night, I did something I hadn't done in years. I stood in the girl's bathroom, in the middle of the night, quite secure in the thought that no one would be interrupting me. I let the towel fall to the floor and I did an inventory.

I've read books, seen movies, heard people talk about getting older and doing this – about taking stock of their lives as it shows on their bodies – how they've lived reflected in their skin, their knees and elbows, their eyes.

What I saw wasn't pretty.

In the mirror, eyes looked back that didn't really focus – they looked far away. I saw dark circles, so purple they were almost black from fatigue that I continued to ignore. Anymore I only slept when it became evident that I would simply collapse while walking if I didn't let my eyes close. It was the only way to stave off nightmares, dreams, uncontrolled thoughts of Edward. Thoughts recycled in my unconsiouseness of Alice, of Jasper and Emmett and Carlisle and Esme and Rosalie. Of Jacob. Of _home_.

My mouth was pale and my bottom lip was chapped. I touched it gingerly, and realized it was from where I bit and chewed on it – I had scraped away layers of epidermis that were trying to repair themselves in bits and pieces that were torn away again. It was a red, irritated spot – one that I never realized stung until just now.

I was still a little squishy around the edges – Edward had said he liked the soft bits of my body, and Jacob was always poking me to elicit a reaction. I poked myself just below my ribs, and I realized my finger didn't sink nearly as much as it used to. My bones jutted out a little bit – it wasn't appealing.

On my neck, near my collarbone, was a yellowish bruise, the last of a hickey from Joseph.

I realized I never once thought of Joseph as my boyfriend. I wondered what it was that we were – I'd never cared to define it before. It made me smile a little when I thought of how he would be frustrated that I even attempted to do such a horrendous thing as give definition to an interpersonal relationship.

But he didn't fulfill my needs – he simply used my body when I allowed him to.

So he wasn't a boyfriend. Not really. Emotionally, we were worlds apart. And I never thought it bothered me before now. I realized that I wasn't stringing him along like I'd done with Jacob – I had no emotional investment in this, and I assumed Joseph didn't either.

Jacob. Joseph. JacobJoseph. jacobjosephjacobjoseph.

I used people. I wasn't whole anymore, so I used other people to feel alive.

I let out a laugh in the empty bathroom, and it echoed off the walls.

Edward had made a vampire out of me after all.

I sucked the life out of others to survive.

# # # # #

The next Saturday, I went to the closest Target and I used the money for that week's cigarettes on a new top. Something not black. The Saturday after that, I did the same. I spent my cigarette money on clothes, so there would be none left for menthol Marlboros.

I quit cold turkey. It was easier than I expected it to be.

And instead of staying on campus for the summer again, I packed up my little hand-me-down Sentra (dark blue, not red) and went home. Charlie wasn't expecting me, and I swear he almost cried. I had no hickeys to hide, my lip was healing, and I only looked like I hadn't slept for a year instead of nearly four - but it was a start.

# # # # #

We sat at the table, the only sound was of forks scraping against plates through piles of instant potatoes, and corn being hurried around chicken breasts.

"So. Any plans for the summer?"

He tried to sound unconcerned, but it seemed that seeing myself a little clearer also made others a little sharper too. I could tell he was worried as hell.

I took a sip of my milk – which I hadn't realized I missed until last week when I'd had my first cold glass in a really really long time. "No. I haven't decided yet. I'll have to get a job, or something. I gave up my job at the Student Center for the summer to come home."

"What did you do at the Student Center?"

I stared. Had I never told Charlie what I was doing every summer I didn't come home?

"Um, mostly making up work orders for the room assignments – lofting beds, lights that need repairing, window latches that need tightening. That sort of thing." I took a bite of my potatoes. "I answered phones a little bit, but not much. They basically just let me type up the work orders." I chased down the potatoes with another sip of milk.

"Well I'm sure the Newtons would be glad to have you back – they're always hurting for summer help these days."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. You should ask Mrs. Newton. I'm sure she'd love to see you."

There was silence as he looked at his plate, and cut his chicken with the side of his fork.

"Dad, I'm not going to see Mike. I'm not going to see anyone. I came home, but it was just to get away, okay? I'm not looking for significance in my summer. In fact, I would rather this summer stayed entirely insignificant."

He nodded, as though he was with me the entire time. "Of course, of course, I meant nothing of the sort." He drank his milk like some people drank beer for courage.

"Jacob's home for the summer."

"Dad." I looked at him, and he couldn't hold my stare.

"Okay, okay."

We ate the rest of dinner in silence.

# # # # #

I got my job back at Newton's. Charlie was right – Mrs. Newton was ecstatic.

So I spent every day, six hours a day, stocking shelves with carbiners and reorganizing the hiking boots and stamping fishing licenses. I split the shift with a high schooler with braces. I'd never seen her before, and realized that she might never have been at Forks High when I was there.

It made me feel a little old.

I tried not to think about everything else I associated with growing old.

And the fact that I continued to, while some people out there were seventeen forever.

# # # # #

It was August when my Sentra died.

I suppose it had been on its way out since I bought it off a lawn for eight hundred dollars before I left for Seattle, but I was still a little sad to see it go.

I took a day off work at Newton's, and I told Charlie I was going to Dowlings, to see if he had any decent used cars on the lot.

"There's a garage out by the reservation that usually has two or three – and the guy that runs it is probably a better mechanic."

"Yeah?" I asked, pulling on my coat.

Charlie nodded, his attention on his coffee and newspaper. "Of course, if that fails too, you can always go out to one of the dealerships and look at something out there."

"I don't want to steal your car _all _day, Dad."

"Well I don't want you making hasty decisions either," he said, and turned in his chair to face me. "You still sure you don't want me to come along?"

I actually smiled. "Yeah, Dad, I'm good. Big kid now, remember? I know when someone's trying to pull one over on me."

He smiled back at me. "Go get 'em, _kid_." He winked at me, and I think he was trying to impersonate Humphrey Bogart. I couldn't tell, and just left with a short laugh, jingling his keys in my hand.

I pulled the cruiser out of the driveway just as some deputy I didn't recognize pulled in to pick my father up.

I drove towards the reservation, figuring I could check there first, and appease Charlie, then go down to Dowlings and see what my real options were.

Pulling into the small garage, simply named "La Push Garage", I parked the cruiser and shut the door, and wandered over to a small line of four cars and a Chevy Bronco with windows chalked in bright green with prices that all claimed "OBO" with lots of exclamation points.

I was examining a little grey Neon, and trying to remember if Leigh had said her sister's Neon did really _good _on the icy roads or if it had been really _bad_.

"Something I can help you with Miss?"

I turned around, meaning to ask if they had anything with all-wheel drive, but I never got the words out.

"Jake," I said, and I couldn't help but smile.

"Hi Bells," he said breathily.

We just stood there, six feet apart, smiling at each other. I started to get a little headache that really meant a muscle ached in my neck, and wondered if it was because I hadn't smiled for this long in...a long time. And seeing him didn't hurt in my chest anymore. That only made me smile just a little more.

"If you want a car, I've got a little red Volkswagon that needs a loving home," he said with a grin, wiping his hands on his coveralls.


	4. Epilogue

I was at a book-signing in Seattle when I saw him again.

I smiled at everyone, the glasses that I needed to see up close these days making their faces clearer, but there were so many that I had no way of recognizing them.

The books flew off the table, and there were stacks by the door, and I tried to at least smile and ask who they wanted it made out to before they were hurried on by the Borders staff. Some, I could tell, wanted a bit more, wanted a chat, and I whispered to those ones that I planned on having coffee at the Seattle's Best next door after the signing. I wondered if Seattle's Best had a conference room. I was giving my secret away to way too many people.

The line had started to thin, and then it trickled down to nothing. A few stragglers who had already had their copies signed, but were sticking around for when I was allowed to leave the table sat in plush armchairs chatting. I couldn't help but smile – making friends over books wasn't the worst way to go about it.

I leaned back in my chair and stretched, yawning, one hand over my mouth. I leaned forward and pushed my glasses up, shaking my head to clear the fatigue – it was just five minutes of eight – almost time to escape. My fingers were cramped, and I cracked a few knuckles, trying to get the feeling back in them.

"Have time for a couple more?"

"Yeah," I said, and looked up.

He stood there, looking seventeen.

I don't know if there was any color in my face to drain. I barely had the saliva to swallow.

He handed over the first of two copies he had in his hand.

He wasn't smiling, not quite, but he didn't look completely depressed either.

I cleared my throat, and looked around, trying to gauge my situation. The people in the armchairs still chatted quietly, and one of the cashiers up front closed her window. No one seemed to think there was something odd about the boy standing in front of me. Maybe this was a dream, maybe it wasn't. I didn't particularly want to find out.

"Who do you want it made out to?" I asked, pulling the copy towards me, and opening the front cover, looking down, trying not to blush, trying not to give myself away.

"Esme Cullen."

I swallowed audibly and licked my lips. Then I put pen to page and wrote: _Dearest Esme, didn't think this was your sort of book, but I'm glad I'm on your reading list. Love you always, Bella_.

I closed the cover and slid it across the table, and he slid the second copy across in exchange.

My fingers touched his, just for a second, and I was sixteen all over again. My heart jumped in my chest. I felt betrayed by my own body – I was supposed to be done with this. I had replayed a scene something like this hundreds, billions, gajillions of times.

I cleared my throat again.

"And, this one?"

He didn't reply, and my pen was poised over the flyleaf, ready to write. I looked up.

His eyes were still golden, his skin still shimmered, even in artificial light. I doubted anyone else noticed, unless they knew what they were looking at. I swallowed hard, trying to break the stare, but he just let it go on. His lips were still pale pink, and I felt a visceral memory sweep through me – the feel of his lips on my lips, the feel of his lips on that place on my neck just below my ear, the feel of them on my hair.

"Hello Bella."

"Who would you like this made out to?" was all I could come up with.

"Me, if you wouldn't mind," he said, his eyes, his entire _face_, was gentle. I almost couldn't stand it. He was apologetic in glance, in stance, and I had already done it – I had forgiven him long ago.

I spent several seconds, and wrote almost a paragraph, handing it back to him.

He didn't open it up to read it, he set it on top of Esme's copy and curled them under his arm. He smiled at me, and then he leaned down over the table, and kissed me lightly on the temple.

"Sir, Sir! What do you think you're doing? Please step away from the author! We're closing, it's time for you to leave!"

The manager looked particularly unhappy that I'd allowed someone to touch me while I was on their clock. I wondered if they'd had a problem with lawsuits or something. She was awfully sensitive.

"Yes ma'am," he said, and gave me one last smile, and turned and walked out the door.

He didn't look back.

# # # # #

_Edward, you are my forever, and my always. I will love you til the day I die. I'm sorry I didn't fight harder – I should have. But now I know why you had to leave. Just so you know, even with the spectre of you on the edges of my days, I am happy. Love you until the end of __your__ days, numbered beyond mine and into eternity, your Bella._


End file.
